3 Invalid Reasons For Openly Discouraging the use of Video Games

Video Games are bad because... Video Games are Addictive Video Games are Trashy/Explicit Video Games are a Waste of Time

"Video Games are Addictive" Video Games aren’t addictive because they’re bad, they’re addictive because they’re so good. The same goes for every other bit of entertainment you love. Don’t we use “I couldn’t put it down” as a measure of quality when reading books? I bet all of your favorite TV shows are addictive, once again, that usually just means they’re high quality. The reason your kiddo won’t get off of the thing is because it’s so intellectually stimulating. Most people couldn’t spend as much time watching television as they could surfing the internet. Your mind is typically much more involved when your on the internet, you aren’t as passive. Your Kid won’t be as quick to get bored playing Mario, because it’s doing that much more for him. He isn’t a passive observer, he’s actually doing things. That in no way means it is a good use of time, spending a large amount of time in any kind of escapism entertainment is a potentially huge issue. But to say that video games are bad because they are addictive is a fallacy, and it does more harm to say than good. The best things we come across in life are addictive along with the worst. The addictive qualities in video games say a lot about the power they have, but it doesn’t say anything about the direction in which that power is being used.

"Video Games are Trashy/Explicit" I don’t need to go into depth on this one. What people perceive as filthy and degrading varies, but whatever your definition, suffice it to say, If you give a kid a paper and a pencil, and he defiles that paper with filth and vulgarity, you don’t get rid of paper and pencils, because the paper and pencils are tools you can do good with. You might criticize the drawing, but you wouldn’t criticize the tools. Pornography is the drawing, a camera is the tool. Degrading Filthy Video Games are the Drawing, Video Games are tools. Criticize the drawing, not the tool.

"Video Games are a Waste of Time" Let me play Devil’s Advocate for a second.“Video Games are fun and all, but there is always something better we could be doing with our time, and if we were living up to our potential, we wouldn’t be spending any time with them.” “Why would you ever spend time playing video games when you could be learning something, or playing sports?” Where would we be if we all applied this logic? Nowhere. Nothing is productive until it is discovered as such, usually by someone who is “distracted.” People who insist on always having something “productive” to take up their time, will never discover anything new. Video Games will be used for much more than entertainment (which there is nothing wrong with), we’ll be using them for training and education, and those innovations in Video Games won’t be invented by people who had to be “productive” 100% of the time. They’ll be created by people who didn’t have to place themselves above spending time on things that didn’t, at that moment, have a defined purpose. All innovations come that way. Before it is useful, it’s a “distraction” for someone. Now if you use that as an excuse to spend a great deal of time on purposeless activities, neglecting your duties and people around you, then you’ll suffer personally for it. That being said, I will never listen to anyone who informs me I can’t spend any time being “unproductive.” Either they don’t follow their own advice, or they’re fundamentally broken. People like that can only be experts in fields that already exist.

I think you very much gloss over the nature of addition, and wrongly equate the nature of addiction as somehow equivalent to getting wrapped up in something they enjoy.

""Video Games are Trashy/Explicit" -"I don’t need to go into depth on this one"

Why not? Why even mention it and write a blog post about it if you don't have anything to add? Blog shouldn't just be some relay of your opinion, but something meaningful about the subject at hand.

""Video Games are a Waste of Time"

Everything you posit as one day becoming a thing, has been a thing for a while now.

Just say that how people spend their free time is their decision, and its really not for others to judge, because not everyone should be expected to do something productive in someone else's eyes all of the time.

Otherwise, you offer up nothing of any real worth to this criticism, which I really don't see said that often anyhow.